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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24082711">Slow Dance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamyreid/pseuds/dreamyreid'>dreamyreid</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Criminal Minds (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Spencer Reid x You, Spencer Reid x y/n, criminal minds imagines, spencer reid x reader - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:28:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,354</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24082711</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamyreid/pseuds/dreamyreid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You and spencer have hidden feelings for each other, but it’s hard when everyone’s always trying to protect you.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Spencer Reid &amp; You, Spencer Reid/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>106</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Slow Dance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If you stay for this minute, girl I'll never let you down...<br/>The team had just gotten back to the BAU after a long case a few states away, and everyone except you and Spencer was out of the door. You were stressing out because yet again you were being paired with either Morgan or Hotch on every single case you’ve been given the past few months. At first, you had hardly noticed, but with every passing case and every, “young one,” comment, you have grown more and more furious.</p>
<p>Spencer understood completely. Having been a twelve-year-old highschool graduate, he’s gotten his fair share of the “being young,” comments, and teases. He could only imagine it was probably considerably worse for you since you were a woman, and women are commonly misconstrued, as the, “weaker gender.”</p>
<p>You were everything but weak though. Over the past few months, after you had joined the team, he and pretty much everyone noticed that you are incredibly smart, head-strong, honest, and ambitious. Perhaps this is why the team felt the need to protect you.</p>
<p>Sure, there have been plenty of new members, and new people and faces and scents, but you were different. In this case, different wasn’t terrible, it was just - unexpected. You were the youngest there, and with you being another woman added to the team, everyone kind of looked at you a little differently. It wasn’t that they doubted your profiling skills, oh no, you were, “damn good,” at your job as Morgan likes to say, and it wasn’t the fact that they thought you couldn’t handle yourself because of your age, but they were trying to make it so that the cases wouldn’t get to you.</p>
<p>Because of your age, they felt that after a while maybe the cases would get to be too much for you, and they wanted to prevent you from a world of confusion and hurt.</p>
<p>That is what hurt you the most though. Why couldn’t you just be treated like everyone else here?</p>
<p>And Spencer listened to anything and everything you had to say. He had become the closest thing to a best friend you could have, but sometimes it just didn’t feel like you were meant to be just friends.</p>
<p>Sometimes he’d catch himself staring at you a bit too long, or wanting to come up with anything he could to talk to you, or maybe even go as far as staring at your lips when you were talking, but he digressed and tried to suppress anything he might have felt for you.</p>
<p>And you did as well.</p>
<p>All the time you had caught yourself wanting to just pull him into a hug that lasted forever, or hold his hand, and maybe even kiss him, but he was your coworker. Not only that, but on top of all the field limitations, those same limits seemed to be in office as well.</p>
<p>We ain't off the limit, I could hold you after now. <br/>No more talking, I don't know what you wanna do with that?<br/>A few bold interns from a couple of floors down had tried to ask you out on a date, and maybe even a few more, but as soon as they had or even had the thought to, Morgan, Hotch, and sometimes even Garcia would give you a disapproving look, glare the guy down, or maybe even go as far as shut the guy down verbally for you.</p>
<p>Afterwards you’d always apologize to the guy, and you always felt bad for having to do it. Well, not really. Of course it made you upset that they never seemed to want you to live your life and actually find love, but the only one you wanted to go on dates with anyway was Spencer.</p>
<p>You knew your jobs, and the fact that you worked together could be a problem, but you couldn’t help but wonder if you could actually be something. Or maybe you misinterpreted the looks he gave you, and he actually doesn’t like you that way at all.</p>
<p>That night, Spencer had gotten home and went straight to sleep. Usually he’d dream of his mom, the cases, or maybe even some of the plain rides, but tonight's dreams seemed to have been filled with you. You were on his couch, in one of his cardigans, reading a book, eating some kind of fruit. He came in, sat next to you and handed you a cup of coffee after placing a quick kiss to your lips.</p>
<p>In the dream after that he had woken up, and you were snuggled in beside him. He had his arm wrapped around him, and your legs were tangled with his. The sun had barely risen, and the comforter was twisted in a weird way between the two of you, but when he actually woke up the next morning, he couldn’t help but noticed it felt so normal, and he wished it had been real.</p>
<p>He ran his fingers through his tangled curls, and scolded himself for those dreams. How was he going to look at you the same in a couple of hours when he almost-knew what it felt like to kiss you, and he almost-knew what it felt like to be so close to you?</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>“What’s wrong, kiddo?” You cringed at the nickname Rossi used towards you, but you answered him anyway.</p>
<p>“Nothing, just tired.”</p>
<p>He shook his head and laughed to himself. You gave him a ‘what?’ look.</p>
<p>“You’re not tired Y/N. You’re distressed.” He nods towards where Reid is sitting. “You haven’t stopped staring at him, care to talk about it?”</p>
<p>“Not really.” You sighed, spinning your chair around so now you were no longer even facing Reid - that way you wouldn’t be caught staring again.</p>
<p>“I say go for it.” You give him that ‘what?’ look again waiting for him to elaborate. “It’s obvious you two like eachother. Take it from me, don’t wait before it’s too late.”</p>
<p>“But the team -” You argue.</p>
<p>“At the end of the day, the team doesn’t matter. Just you and Spencer.”</p>
<p>And with that, Rossi walked away leaving you to think about what he said, and if it was even really possible for you two to be something more than friends.</p>
<p>It feels good, why you even wanna hold it back?<br/>We just work and I know there's no coming back.<br/>“Awe, would you look at them!” Garcia gushed, watching you laugh at something Spencer said across the bullpen.</p>
<p>“Look at who?” Morgan asked clearly oblivious to the two of you.</p>
<p>“Spencer and Y/N.” Garcia answered pointing slightly in your direction so that Morgan could see too.</p>
<p>Morgan looked over and saw that you were sitting on your desk, and Spencer was standing in front of you with a cup of coffee in his hands. You were giggling like crazy, and Spencer smiled too although he wasn’t quite sure what the joke was.</p>
<p>“Y/N! Tell me what’s so funny! All I said was cassava!”</p>
<p>This only caused you to laugh even harder. There was this trick in elementary where you would ask someone a series of easy math questions very quickly, and then on the last question you’d ask them to name a vegetable. The trick was that usually the participant would say the basic vegetable, “carrots,” but no, Spencer Reid answered, “cassava.”</p>
<p>Once you stopped laughing, you explained it to him, and he didn’t find it as funny as you did, but nevertheless he started laughing too because your laugh seemed to be infectious. <br/>_</p>
<p>“I didn’t know which you liked better, so I brought both.” Spencer said, smiling behind bags of chinese food and two boxes of pizza.</p>
<p>“Oh my God Spencer!” you gushed, grabbing some of the bags and one of the boxes.</p>
<p>He closes the door behind him and puts all the food on the table.</p>
<p>“What are you even doing here?” You ask giving him a quick hug.</p>
<p>“Well, I know you’ve been a little down lately, and I just thought I’d help in any way that I could.”</p>
<p>You almost cried. He was so sweet to you, and you had no idea how to react. You wanted to wrap your arms around him and show him how much you appreciate him with a passionate kiss, but you knew that you probably shouldn’t.</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>Spencer invited you over for a movie marathon, and you’d be there any minute. He had made sure his apartment was flawless, and everything was perfect. Sure, you’ve been to his place before, but lately, things have begun to feel...different.</p>
<p>There was this one time at work where you two had gotten so close that he had just almost kissed you, but he had chickened out, and he had regretted that decision ever since.</p>
<p>When you got there, you both ended up staying up until three in the morning watching your favorite movies.</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>“Do you wanna go catch some lunch?” Terry from downstairs asks you.</p>
<p>“She likes someone else, sorry my man.” Morgan answers for you resting his arm across your shoulders.</p>
<p>Once the guy was gone, you turned to him with a frown.</p>
<p>“Someone as in who?” You ask.</p>
<p>“Uh uh,” he steps away. “Don’t play dumb with me Miss Lady. You know exactly who I’m talking about.” <br/>You rolled your eyes and walked over to the elevator.</p>
<p>Once you had entered the bullpen, you noticed Penelope and Spencer in a corner - except she looked to be giving him a pep-talk of some kind.<br/>_</p>
<p>“Spencer I’m telling you, you NEED to make a move.” Penelope practically whines. “I am tired of seeing you two pine after one another.”</p>
<p>Spencer shakes his head and sighs. “We don’t know if she even - and the team. The team practically throws the guys who even look at her out of the window.”</p>
<p>“You’re different, you know it’s different with you.”</p>
<p>Spencer wasn’t so sure. He’d hate it if he were to kindle something with you, and the team was unsupportive.<br/>_</p>
<p>A couple of days later, Spencer had walked by your desk and noticed a bouqet of roses in your wastebasket.</p>
<p>“Who were those from?” He asks half curiously, half jealousy (although he’s not willing to admit that.)</p>
<p>“Some guy named uh- Dylan, but I uhh, I’m interested in someone else.” You looked everywhere but Spencer’s eyes, trying not to laugh.</p>
<p>“Oh, you do?” he asks wearily, not quite sure where you were going with this. “Do I know him?”</p>
<p>“Oh yeah.” You smile. “You guys are practically like this.” You twisted your middle and pointer finger together to show the closeness.</p>
<p>He smiled down at you catching on. “Don’t tell me it’s Morgan, Y/N.”</p>
<p>“Nah. This guy likes to read. I don’t think Derek’s ever picked up a book in the last five years.”</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>It was late one night and you and Spencer were the only ones left in the office. You walked over to his desk where he was reading the newspaper, but when he noticed you his head immediately picked up.<br/>“Remember when I told you that you know the guy that I’m interested in?”</p>
<p>“Mhmm yeah, I think I remember.”</p>
<p>“He’s you. The guy is you.”</p>
<p>“Could have fooled -”</p>
<p>And you leaned in capturing his lips in yours. He tasted of coffee and bubblegum, which isn’t as bad as it might seem. He kissed you back and you forgot everything for a moment - forgot you were at the bullpen, forgot he was your coworker, and forgot the team's reaction actually might have meant something to you.</p>
<p>They meant nothing now when he’s pulling you down to straddle his lap and deepening the kiss. When you felt his tongue along your lips you opened your mouth a little wider so that he could kiss you just a little bit harder.</p>
<p>You both pulled away at the same time but stayed close, as he was running his hands along your sides.</p>
<p>“Me. You could have fooled me.” he finishes. You laughed and pressed a quick kiss to his lips which he returned before climbing out of his lap and steadying yourself on the ground.</p>
<p>You were going to walk away, until he grabbed your hand and pulled you back.</p>
<p>“Hey,” he practically whispered. “Go to dinner with me tomorrow night.”</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>I wanna slow dance if you’re feeling me now<br/>If we don't hold hands you'll be killing me now<br/>Spencer had arrived at your apartment with a bouquet of wildflowers.</p>
<p>He had knocked, and when you opened the door, he was absolutely shocked.</p>
<p>“Wow, you look stunning.” He lets out.</p>
<p>“As do you.”</p>
<p>You grab the flowers from him and place it in a vase before grabbing your jacket, his hand, and heading out of the door.</p>
<p>The night went smoothly, and the dinner was great, and it couldn’t have been more perfect.</p>
<p>“Spence?” You asked, rubbing your thumb across his knuckles. You were holding the hand he wasn’t using to drive.</p>
<p>“Hm?”</p>
<p>“Have you ever seen The Notebook?”</p>
<p>“Actually...no.”</p>
<p>“Okay.”</p>
<p>“Why?” he asks looking over at you. You couldn’t have been more beautiful in his eyes.</p>
<p>“You’ll see.”</p>
<p>When he pulled out in front of your apartment, and you were out of his car, you took his hand and led him to the middle of the street - the only source of light being the street lamp hovering above the two of you.</p>
<p>“Y/N, what are you doing?”</p>
<p>“Slow dance with me.”</p>
<p>“I can’t dance.”</p>
<p>“That’s alright.” You stepped close to him and guided his hands so that they were resting on your backside, and you brought your arms up to wrap around his neck. From there, you led him to step with you to a nonexistent rhythm.</p>
<p>You two weren’t really worried about any cars, this wasn’t a busy street.</p>
<p>“Tell me about The Notebook.” he says, pulling your body closer to his.</p>
<p>“Well Noah actually laid down in the street, not danced and -”</p>
<p>I need a romance, one chance<br/>I just wanna know, will you slow dance?</p>
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